Our half-time scorecard on the Royal Opera’s Ring cycle
With Die Walküre, the central themes of Barrie Kosky’s Ring cycle for the Royal Opera are starting to emerge, and one of them seems to be wood. Not trees, so much; at least not as a symbol of life. After the rapid assembly of a world from theatrical nothingness (a bare stage), Hunding’s forest hall is simply a wall of blackened planks, with no World Ash Tree in sight. Then you notice the protruding hilt of the sword Nothung: no, that is the World Ash Tree, and Hunding has recycled it into building material. We knew he was a wrong ’un, but really: this is Sycamore Gap-level wickedness. Various ex-trees
